Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Paul Joseph was totally committed to the struggle against apartheid and remains dedicated to social justice in South Africa and throughout the world. As a young man he worked for Julius First, Ruth's father. Below is a letter that he recently sent me about Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid.

Paul & Adelaide
Joseph

Dear
Alan,

Thank
you very much for the copy of your biography on the lives of Ruth First &
Joe Slovo ‘In the War Against Apartheid.’

In
the course of convalescing I managed to finish the book. I found it absorbing,
enriching in which there were so many facets that were new to me.

The
way you sketched out these two characters with such poignancy, sensitivity
& fascinating details brought out such vivid recollections of our
association with Joe & Ruth over years of friendship.

As
I was getting towards the end of the book I was listening to Nigel Kennedy
performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at a Proms night. He was accompanied by some
musicians from Gaza.

He
played with gusto. When he finished there was a tremendous applause. He made a
short statement of how pleased he was with the end of apartheid. There was an
explosion of applause.

At
that very moment I was reading your description of how Joe’s life was seeping
out.

I
choked and cried at the way you described Ruth & Joe who gave their lives
to end apartheid.

It
was well after 1 a.m. I got up to go to Adelaide’s room. I wanted to talk to
her about what you wrote about Ruth & Joe.

She
was sound asleep. Her health is also not too good. I left her.

The
next morning as she was preparing the coffee I briefly told her but could not
continue as I broke down. She embraced me saying she understood how I felt
about Ruth & Joe.

My
sincere appreciation to you for describing the lives of Ruth & Joe as well
as that of Tilly, Julius, Ronnie & the grand-daughters.

I
think this book should be considered for a textbook for universities of South
Africa which encompasses the CP, ANC, the Congress Alliance and MK.

The
book will also benefit scholars, students and activists in Africa, Europe and
the Americas & the Caribbean & Asia.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Mandela achieved few of his big feats solo By DANA
APRIL SEIDENBERG | Monday, March 24 2014

The
towering figure of Nelson Mandela is often depicted as a lone warrior for
justice and as the symbol of that nation’s triumph over apartheid.

Imbued
with seemingly magical powers, he prevented that beloved country from being
swept away in a tidal wave of resentment, the result of decades of
ill-treatment at the hands of a sleaze-oozing, ruthless regime.

His
magisterial No Easy Walk to Freedom has been savoured by millions who
crave connection to him. Not to diminish Madiba’s larger-than-life legacy, he
achieved few of his huge accomplishments alone.

American
oral historian, Alan Wieder’s new dual biography investigates the lives of Ruth
First and her husband Joe Slovo, passionate whistleblowers whose dangerous
underground activities and personal sacrifice for revolutionary social change
have earned both an honoured place in history.

First,
Ruth First. In l963 after two soul-destroying stints of solitary confinement
lasting 117 days in a Johannesburg prison, First fled to Britain where she
taught political science at Durham University. She also wrote or edited several
books including Mandela’s own work, and with Kenya’s Oginga Odinga, his l967
memoir, Not Yet Uhuru.

Having
taken up a position at Mozambique’s Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, First
was targeted for assassination by the apartheid regime.

In
l982 at age 57, this Red-hot academic was killed by a letter bomb she opened at
her office desk after lunching with movement photographer, Moira Forjaz and
others.

In
l960 Mandela joined the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party
to impose its armed struggle on the ANC leadership. Joe Slovo scripted with
others the SACP/ANC Freedom Charter and organised the guerrilla movement.

Slovo,
Spear of the Nation

After
Madiba was sentenced to life imprisonment, Slovo assumed his exalted position
as leader of the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the
Nation).

Held
responsible for multiple acts of sabotage including the bombing of
installations around South Africa, he, too, was on the run…living in exile …on
and off with Ruth in Maputo. From “terrorist” to national hero, Slovo served in
President Mandela’s government oddly as Minister for Housing until in l995 when
he died of cancer. An official state funeral followed.

What
is wrong with this schema? Why investigate the successes and travails of this
particular courageous couple among the thousands involved in South Africa’s
liberation and others around Africa in the late 20th century?

Still,
their contribution as trusted comrades at the very top of the ANC movement
hierarchy cannot go unnoticed. Aside from strengthening the ideological
platforms of progressive political struggles elsewhere, their egalitarian message,
social daring and achievements could serve as pointers for new generations of
progressive political activists.

The
moral authority of Ruth First and Joe Slovo rested on their SACP membership. As
brilliant Marxist-Leninist intellectuals only later did they become ANC
strategists.

Looking
back, Mandela, who met First and Slovo when the latter two were law students at
the University of Witwatersrand, commented: “Joe Slovo had one of the sharpest,
most incisive minds I have ever encountered. He was an ardent Communist… . Ruth
had an outgoing personality and was a gifted writer.”

As
the years went by, in Wieder’s view, Slovo remained an idealistic admirer of
Soviet Communism while First dismissed the “workers’ state” as a gross
deception.

First’s
parents and Slovo were part of the large two-pronged turn-of-the-20th century
Jewish migration fleeing Eastern European pogroms to the subcontinent and to
New York.

Out
of Lithuania and Latvia’s anti-Zionist Socialist Bund, came the
Marxist-Leninist Firsts and Slovos…as did the family of Albie Sachs. (In
Nairobi a few years ago Professor Albie Sachs — also in the book — was among
those on the Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board charged with sweeping Kenya’s
judiciary of its corrupt judges.

Abraham
Block

Also
targeted for assassination, miraculously Sachs survived.) Abraham Block,
another Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant around whom a family biography, Abraham’s
People, has just been published, had arrived in Kenya via South Africa.
Hatched in the same nest, there the common narrative ends. A number of
Johannesburg Jews became immersed in SACP/ANC politics.

The
Blocks alongside Kenya’s Jewish and other immigrant populations focused mainly
on business. Those who stayed put in Europe suffered a tragic fate at the hands
of Nazi Germany.

Wieder
has done a commendable job of interviewing most everyone who knew First and
Slovo well. So painstakingly rendered is Wieder’s character study of the two,
they could escape from the pages into your life. Unfortunately the work lacks a
framing or over-arching perspective in which to contextualise events in their
partnership.

The
ANC/SACP, like the Paris Commune once described as a “sphinx” because of its
mysteriousness, is too ill-defined to link the couple’s involvement to either
of them.

Outside
the ANC/SACP — the couple’s response to the Sharpeville massacre of l960, the
Soweto uprising of l976, the Black Consciousness movement, and Steve Biko’s
martyrdom — is sketchy too.

By
April 27, l994 when Mandela became president, legislating away what Bishop
Desmond Tutu called the “pigmentocracy” was a relatively easy, palliative move;
the ANC, unlike other anti-colonial movements around the continent, having also
contained an admirable mix of trusted Europeans, Coloureds and South Asians.

First
and Slovo spent their lives destroying South Africa’s status quo.

It
is known that the SACP not only wanted to end apartheid, but also to create a
communist state. In the transition from colonial capitalism to a daringly
re-imagined alternative society, what were the plan(s), policies or even ideals
envisaged?

The
infinitely greater challenge to overcome economic desperation that needed bold,
often unpopular decisions on income inequality, land restitution and resource
nationalism was ignored. Why were none of these goals or aims pursued during
his presidency?

More
First-Slovo multiple marriage memoir than engaged political history, Wieder’s
work is informative, entertaining and emotionally open. But he might have taken
a cue from First’s own university course “Politics of Class Alliances” where
students read Samir Amin, Walter Rodney, Ernest Mandel, Eduardo Galeano,
Rosa Luxemburg and others.

Wieder
misses the moment for presenting their world in a salutary manner that connects
it to the many ongoing struggles for social justice today.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Since
1974 ROAPE has provided radical analysis of trends, issues and social processes
in Africa, adopting a broadly materialist interpretation of change. It sustains
a critical analysis of the nature of power and the state in Africa in the
context of capitalist globalisation.

Ruth
First: Não Vamos Esquecer (We Will Not Forget)

The
South African revolutionary Ruth First made an extraordinary contribution to
activism and radical writing and research on Africa. She worked as a journalist
in South Africa from 1946 until her exile in the UK in 1964. She then became an
editor, co-author and author of a large number of books, as well as a lecturer.
She was also one of the founding members of the Review of African Political
Economy (RoAPE) in 1974, a radical journal committed to transforming (and understanding)
Africa’s political economy.

In
the late 1970s First moved to Mozambique as Director of Research at the Centro
de Estudos Africanos at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo. In 1982
she was murdered in Maputo by the apartheid state. Drawing on papers presented
at the 2012 Ruth First Papers Project symposium, RoAPE has produced a special
issue that

includes
contributions from Anne-Marie Gentili, Gavin Williams and Alpheus Manghezi. The
special issue on Ruth First is the story of First’s life in Mozambique, and her
broad and substantial contribution to radical African studies. Much of Ruth
First’s work and life remains unknown to a new generation yet her work was of
such impressive scope, her activism so courageous. Join us to celebrate the
extraordinary life of Ruth First and the launch of the Ruth First Special
Issue.

Institute
of Commonwealth Studies 1 May, 2014

Venue:

Senate
Room (First floor, Senate

House,
Malet Street,London WC1E 7HU)

Panel
-17:00 –18:30

Ruth
First: activism and research

Welcome
by Gillian Slovo

‘Writing
Ruth First’s biography’ Alan Wieder (Wieder is the author of Ruth First and Joe
Slovo in the War Against Apartheid published to wide acclaim last year).

Gavin
Williams

‘Setting
up RoAPE: Ruth and the first years of the Review’

Chair

Professor
Philip Murphy (Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies)

BOOK
TALK at Housmans Bookshop London, UK ‘Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War to
End Apartheid’with Alan Wieder

Wednesday 30th April, 7pm

On a rare visit from America, distinguished academic Alan
Wieder discusses his new book ‘Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War to End
Apartheid’, the first extended biography of the husband and wife who committed
their lives to the war to end apartheid in South Africa. Communists,
scholars, parents, and uncompromising militants, they were the perfect enemies
for the white police state. Together they were swept up in the growing
resistance to apartheid, and together they experienced repression and exile.

Their
contributions to the liberation struggle, as individuals and as a couple, are
undeniable. Ruth agitated tirelessly for the overthrow of apartheid, first in
South Africa and then from abroad, and Joe directed much of the armed struggle
carried out by the infamous Umkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK, translated as
"Spear of the Nation"). Only one of them, however, would survive to
see the fall of the old regime and the founding of a new, democratic South
Africa.

Wieder’s
heavily researched work draws on the usual primary and secondary sources but
also an extensive oral history that he has collected over many years. By
intertwining the documentary record with personal interviews, he portrays the
complexities and contradictions of this extraordinary couple and their efforts
to navigate a time of great tension, upheaval, and revolutionary hope.

Alan
Wieder is an oral historian who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is distinguished
professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and has also taught at
the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
He has written widely on South Africans who fought against the apartheid
regime.